Our Legacy
Today Suzie-Q and I went out to the cemetery to visit my parents’ gravesite. We tidied up, replaced some old flowers with new, and then took a little quiet time. I thought about a legacy. Looking down at the final resting place for what is often referred to as the greatest generation I pondered how the legacy of my generation, the baby boomers, would measure up. I even pondered it on a personal level and what might the next generation think of me or us.
I suppose we could travel down the long trail of who did what and when, but I do not want to do that. I once participated in a seminar, the core of which was to impart that who you are depends on where you were when. Your life experiences define who you are and to a large part that also defines generations.
The people of my parent’s generation came up through the great depression. They learned the value of work especially the large percentage of Americans of the time without it, and understood the importance of providing for their families. They understood the importance of family. They understood the value of money driven by a time of less affluence. They were thrifty. The Second World War was their great challenge. Every generation has its detractors and profiteers, but for the most part Americans at home and at the war front made great sacrifices to defeat the enemy hell bent on world domination. At great cost, they won. They came home to a grateful nation and built an affluent America. It was a vision and determination from the people of that age that put a man on the moon. An American. It is safe to say they made America great. Churches were full on Sundays. No one claimed it offensive or intolerant to declare we were one nation under God. There was an audible national gasp when Clark Gable said “Frankly my dear. I don’t give a damn.”
They also started having babies, many of them. It was a baby boom. The birth of my generation.
Instead of a great depression my generation experienced relatively great affluence. Our big war was a cold one, the mission to block the expansion of communism. It was dotted with the hot ones of Korea and Vietnam, neither of which garnered the total national sacrifice of World War II. In Korea communist aggression was turned back, but the war ended in political settlement not military defeat of the enemy. Many from my generation balked at military service during the Vietnam era with protests and draft card burnings. The great generation had movie stars and the wealthy involved in the war effort. My generation had movie stars heading off to the land of our enemies to take photographs with them and make propaganda radio broadcasts directed to American Soldiers. Our wealthy were receiving multiple draft deferments or filling the bulging ranks of National Guard and Reserve units that largely never deployed to the combat zone unless they needed to build some credentials for future political endeavors. There was no big welcome home for our Vietnam War Veterans. Instead, they were blamed for the failures of politicians. Churches were much less filled on Sundays. We began rating movies based on the content of vulgarity and Mr. Gable’s big screen declaration would raise nary an eyebrow.
Where is my generation now? We are running our country. I am so proud. We are confronted by an enemy hell bent on world domination and we are unable to call him by his name. I suppose we produced the millennial generation, if I am up on my generational tag lines, fully indoctrinated with a progressive education, participation trophies and the need for safe spaces. A generation one would think based on current observations willing to totally embrace socialism because their indoctrination is completed and they missed the history lessons about the millions killed by it. Declaring we are one nation under God is just too intolerant and offensive for them to even contemplate. With vision and determination, the great achievement of my generation is going to be putting a man in a woman’s bathroom. Now that is a legacy a man can be proud of. Well maybe not just a man. I need a safe space.
©2016 J. D. Pendry All Rights Reserved
Category: Politics
^^^Word^^^
I know the line you reference. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Well,religion should always be separated from the state, otherwise we end up with an inquisition.
Other than that, i agree with your points.
The wall of separation between church and state is not a phrase to be found in the Constitution. It appeared in 1802 in a letter from President T. Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association and was, in part, an explanation as to why he would not declare national days of fasting and prayer. Geo. Washington’s thanksgiving proclamation of 1789, something that was requested by Congress begins, “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor….” Decades later, a fellow by the name of A. Lincoln issued a Senate-requested proclamation that called for a national day of prayer and humiliation. It was laden with references to God and began, “Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations…” There are many other examples of presidents and Congress recognizing God but not endorsing a particular religion. Even Jefferson, in the famous Danbury letter, closed by writing, “I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man….” No matter where I look in our history, I see no wall of separation between belief in the Almighty and the state. What I do find is that the US Supreme Court, that unelected group of lawyers that sets public policy in the guise of interpreting the Constitution and enacted law, muddled and mangled the Establishment Clause terribly, to the extent that a simple prayer or other displays of faith are now taboo in many government places and functions. Whether this should be so is an entirely different matter from asking whether the Constitution requires it. The latter is most assuredly answered in the negative.
Jefferson also said this, “One day the birth of jesus from womb of the virgin impregnated by god will be taught as a fable in the same manner as the birth of minerva in the brain of jupiter….”
His point was that all religions fade at some point to be replaced by the next…the founders were as religious as they had to be at that time, speaking to a nation of puritans with deep beliefs…their personal papers indicate men who perhaps didn’t share that deeply religious nature even if they did have a strong belief in some form of deity.
There is a reason the word god is never used in the constitution except in the signatory section denoting the date….christians keep pressing forward about a godly nation, but the constitution makes no such claims.
When you review source materials offered by the founders about a third of it is biblical in reference, meaning two thirds was not biblical. Draw your own conclusions as to what that means to the creation of a godly christian nation.
The distinction between the existence of a creator and adhering to a particular religion is not an inconsequential point. The Constitution prohibits the establishment of a national religion, not a prohibition against an expression of faith by elected and appointed government officials or public service employees. Like I wrote in my second to last line in my initial comment, whether one thinks there should be such a prohibition is a separate matter entirely. It simply is not to be found within the Constitution.
The first amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”
I don’t know if the word ‘respecting’ had a different meaning back then, but my interpretation is that any reference to god, be it to pray in an official capacity, in official documents, etc. should fall under the umbrella of ‘respecting’ religion. Not saying that I’m necessarily against it (e.g. I wouldn’t want to get rid of X-mas as a federal holiday), I’m just perplexed as to how we have been able to justify it for so long.
There is a reason that the words before the comma in the 1st Amendment are not known as the Respecting Clause. If respecting were the operative word, then the amendment would arguably prohibit any government official, when acting in his official capacity, from invoking God’s name or participating in prayer and such. Schools aside (where a different lens is used to conduct legal scrutiny by the Supreme Court) these things are altogether constitutional. Those words before the comma are known as the Establishment Clause b/c those words prohibit a state-sanctioned religion. Thus, both the House and the Senate have official chaplains who offer prayers daily when Congress is in session. The House chaplain (the 60th in history) is a Roman Catholic priest and the Senate chaplain (the 62nd in history) is a Seventh Day Adventist, a retired admiral who was the Navy’s chief of chaplains before he retired. There are many more examples of gov’t officials invoking God’s name, all quite legally and in accord with the Constitution. “God save the United States and this honorable court” is how the crier announces the Supreme Court. The executive branch is easy. Every president finishes his speeches with God bless the United States of America or similar words. Your personal preference may be to abolish these and other official government references to God but the Constitution is fine with them.
Or it could be that he believed in possibilities that could be accepted without animosity. One doesn’t have to support an idea to accept that it may be true. That also accepts the possibility that it may be false. btw, my fat fingers pressed the wrong button when I went to hit reply. Sorry about that.
You skipped us Gen X types. We’re largely responsible for the Millenials, for better or worse. 🙂
Otherwise, extremely well-written; despite being young (born when Donna Summer still topped the charts) I agree with this piece. I miss the America I grew up in.
Greatest generation my ass. They raised the worst scum that is destroying the country. Mellinials may be bad but those boomers still fucking it all up just so they can ge theirs at any expense.
Well written, JD!
No generation was perfect. The Greatest Generation was great with reference to WWII; however, they planted the seeds of some of the greatest atrocities of our time. The pedophile priests of the Priest Sex Scandal were in seminary in the ’40s and ’50s. Our country was under censorship during the War, and that laid the groundwork for the PAtriot Act we have today. Men were beaten and women killed for having a black spouse. For all the sunlight in any generation, there are always shadows that hide terrible truths and deeds.
Some folks like to pretend the shadows didn’t exist. Those who long wistfully for something that never actually existed as their nostalgia fueled imaginations color their memory have long written about the good old days.
As you point out those “good old days” weren’t always good for everyone. The same American that beat those nazi and jap bastards also didn’t let black pilots eat inside a diner that happily served white nazi POWs….talk about an interesting hypocrisy…serving the prisoners of a nation that rounded up 11 million people and put them to death in camps while not serving the very men working to defeat that evil because of the color of their skin….it would take twenty years after that war ended before we would even pass a law forcing local governments to stop those discriminatory practices.
In those good old days FDR died while doctors couldn’t understand that blood pressure issues were a root cause of his death…but hey good old days for someone no doubt.
These days we have amazing health care, we live longer than ever, we are able to keep more people alive for longer periods than at any time in our history. We still outproduce most every nation on earth with our productivity, and we have codified into law a more equal treatment of all of our citizens…we have some economic issues to deal with certainly, but our murder rate is half of what it was in the supposedly good ole days….and more people are more highly educated….but those uppity minorities keep asking to be treated fairly and that gets some folks all worked up so the past must have been better when those “others” all knew their place…
Thanks for pointing out a little reality PN.
Something I read, about the fortunes of a family, from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves, rise and fall in three generations. So we’ve gone from the Great Depression to Socialism.
Every generation, beginning with Adam and Eve, has had its criminals, its traitors, its practitioners of evil. JD’s piece is not about that at all. It is about a changed culture, one that rejects custom and tradition, one that eschews the values that only a short while ago were woven into society’s fabric. To the post-WWII renegades and hippies, these were artificial constructs, designed and perpetuated to maintain an orderly and controllable society. So, instead of respecting authority and honoring our institutions, these post-WWII children came to despise and reject them. It was okay to spit on and curse at America’s fighting men. It was okay to take over university administrative office, to call police officer pigs, to question authority, to engage in free love and to reject the aspirations of previous generations to seek the American dream. We now tear down monuments, dismiss our Founding Fathers as slave owners, recoil when God is mentioned in public discourse. We think we are so damn smart. Yeah, we’re smart, so smart we have a VP who praises the courage of a gay cadet for being gay; so smart we elected and re-elected that guy now in the White House who is nothing like anyone who has ever served as our president before him; so smart we can choose among Clinton, Sanders, and Trump to replace him. It’s maddening. It’s sad.
To “It’s maddening. It’s sad.”, I would add, it’s frightening.
Hey, not all the Baby Boomers(BB) were bad. I would say that only a small percentage were actually the haters . the rest were just sheep folling a false propet. Some of us BB went to the military and Nam. Joe
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